Third Place: No Dirty Gold won $5,000

Lead Group(s):

EARTHWORKS
Oxfam America

 

 

Student Activist
©Markets Initiative

Description of the Problem the Campaign is seeking to address (50 word max):

Gold mining is one of the dirtiest industries in the world. It can contaminate drinking water, destroy traditional livelihoods, and displace communities. The No Dirty Gold campaign is building consumer and jewelry retailer support for the reform of destructive mining practices.

Description of the Victory (30 word max):

23 jewelers, including 7 of the 10 largest US retailers of jewelry, have endorsed the No Dirty Gold campaigns Golden Rules criteria for more socially and environmentally responsible mining.

A Brief Description of the long-term impact of the victory (150 word max):

Gold mining is arguably the world's dirtiest industry, and yet, until the No Dirty Gold campaign was launched in February 2004, the mining industry had been completely invisible to most consumers -- and thus largely impervious to external pressure to clean up its act. In the past 3 years, there has been tremendous response from the mining industry and its end users -- mainly the jewelry sector, which accounts for 80 percent of gold use. We now have the public support of 23 jewelry firms to the campaigns Golden Rules, including retail giant Wal-Mart.

The jewelry sector's increased awareness of mining's impacts has spurred the creation of a multi-stakeholder group of retailers, mining companies, and NGO's called the Initiative for Responsible Mining (IRMA). IRMA will seek to establish best practice standards for mining operations, as well as a system to independently verify compliance with those standards.